"We achieved immediate visibility, strong operations support
and comprehensive analytics from day one."
- Jon Ahrendt, Bloomin' Brands
reducing service levels and ensures
compliance.
Bloomin' Brands needed "a simple
interface for locations to interact with
so they were not always on the phone,
visibility into larger ticket items and
ability to control proposals from
contractors," Buiocchi says. Those fixes
would ultimately "allow them to bring
control in house."
MAJOR CHALLENGES
Bloomin' Brands knew its major
challenges included a lack of support,
strategy, process, technology and
dedicated personnel, and a lack of
visibility into its spending, scope and
service providers. "We had many
members on the team (both dedicated
and shared resources) ranging from
facilities and operations to accounting,
finance, strategic integration and
training," Ahrendt says. "We also
had support from ServiceChannel's
implementation, on boarding,
contractor support, call center and
national account teams."
STORES.ORG
While that might sound like a lot
of bodies, facilities managers will
increasingly be at the table with fellow
managers as Ahrendt was, all dedicated
to strategically planning the customer
experience from variety of viewpoints
- and all contributing to a recipe for
success. A pilot program followed.
"We worked with them to build
a strategy that addressed cultural,
operational and fiscal considerations
including hiring great people," Buiocchi
says. ServiceChannel also established
formal key performance indicators
to measure department effectiveness
and vendor performance around four
categories: quality (user feedback and
recalls); cost savings (compared with
benchmarks); speed of service (time to
dispatch and resolution); and efficient
administration (invoicing and compliance).
ServiceChannel's "dual-focused"
approach appealed to Bloomin' Brands.
"We wanted to get from zero to 60
overnight in terms of our 'facilities
management evolution,'" Ahrendt says.
"We needed to work with the right
technology partner who would give us
the flexibility to grow the business the
way we wanted." Also, he says, "We
liked that they cared about their clients
and service providers."
And ServiceChannel was responsive.
"That's one of their strengths," Ahrendt
says, "We knew the mobile app would
be an important advancement for our
operators. Proposal review and approval
was on the road map, but was months
away from release. Once we expressed
how important it would be for our
team, they accelerated its development
and release. It was a huge improvement
and made a substantial difference."
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
ServiceChannel's platform has been
deployed at Bloomin' Brands for more
than 18 months, covering more than
1,200 U.S. locations. Specifically, the
company relies on Service Automation,
ServiceChannel's flagship platform
that provides the ability to open work
orders, and for the facilities team to
track progress through resolution;
Analytics Custom, an optional Service
Automation module to run reports
customized for internal and external
stakeholders; and Invoice Manager to
reduce invoice and payment processing
costs through a closed-loop process.
"We knew we had the right solution
before we went live in July of 2015,"
Ahrendt says. "Their approach to
business coupled with their mobile
solution gave us confidence. We
achieved immediate visibility, strong
operations support and comprehensive
analytics from day one."
Outside of savings, which Ahrendt
says the company achieved, the
key metric was relationships. "The
relationship between our operations
team and the service provider were at
the forefront of our decision. That's
where the work takes place."
Having worked with a multitude of
third-party systems and companies,
"We knew what we were looking for,"
Ahrendt says. It was "finding the
perfect balance of culture and business
requirements."
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